The paper adds that when he was asked to sing a third piece at sight, he left the stage in disgust as he was unable to read the piece.

Judge Luigi Denza, a professor at the London Academy of Music, had intended to give Joyce the gold medal according to the Irish Times.

However after Joyce’s refusal to sing the piece at sight, he awarded him the bronze.

The report adds that urban myth suggests Joyce later threw the medal into the river Liffey in a fit of pique.

But his biographer Richard Ellman claimed: “Since he could not pawn it he brought it home and disgustedly tossed it on his aunt Ms Murray’s lap, saying, ‘you can have it, Aunt Josephine. I have no use for it.’”

The medal was part of a collection of mementoes owned by his brother Stanislaus which turned up at Sotheby’s in 2004, the centenary year of Bloomsday.

"Lord of the Dance" star Flatley is a known collector of art and antiques and owns a first edition copy of Joyce’s "Ulysses."